Pi Gamma Mu, International Honor Society in Social Sciences

Geopolitics and Peace

Author(s): Edmund J. Walsh
Source: Social Science, Vol. 18, No. 4, Academy of World Economics Number (October 1943),
pp. 182-183
Published by: Pi Gamma Mu, International Honor Society in Social Sciences
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41883511
Accessed: 04-01-2018 21:57 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Pi Gamma Mu, International Honor Society in Social Sciences is collaborating with JSTOR
to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Science

This content downloaded from 207.71.53.62 on Thu, 04 Jan 2018 21:57:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Geopolitics and Peace
Edmund J. Walsh, S. J.
Vice-President and Regent of the School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University

It was Hitler who finally asked the

THEREislegitimate
THERE legitimate geopolitics
a difference geopolitics betweennecessary
necessary the dynamic questions formulated by his
for the United States in the period master ; but he replied to them himself
of world reconstruction and the in the form of tanks, airplanes, sub-
grossly exaggerated form which marines
was and armed men. He simply
popularized throughout Germany used for
the alleged geographic determin-
many years by General Karl Haus- ism systematized by Haushofer to
hofer and his followers. justify and execute a grandiose politi-
Geopolitics is merely an exotic and cal conspiracy dating back to Fichte,
awesome name for a familiar thing. Hegel, Nietzsche, Treitschke, Clause-
There is a certain type of intellectual wicz, and those other amazing Pan
who loves to envelope fairly simple Germanists who for a century and a
ideas in ponderous verbiage, as if to half have been malforming the Prus-
impress his hearers with the profound sian mentality to a conviction of racial
and slightly mystic character of his superiority which, they were promised,
pronouncements. Much German schol- would lead them logically and trium-
arship is infected with this virus of phantly to world domination. The poi-
calculated ponderosity. The school of sonous draught which Germany was
Haushofer is foremost among the doc- induced to swallow was a subtle blend
trinnaires who operate on the assump- of truth and falsehood, of fact and fic-
tion that depth and intelligibilty are tion, pseudoscientific demonstration
contradictory terms. Hence geopolitics and emotional hysteria - all contrived
has suffered from the curse of German to advance the economic ambitions, the
nebulosity and Prussian arrogance. political totalitarianism and the pagan
But at times Haushofer himself is Valhalla of the neurotics who came to
caught off guard and talks like an in- in Berlin after the fall of the
power
telligent mortal under no compulsion Weimar Republic. The greater pity is
to insist and prove that he is a scholar.
that the German high staff should have
' ' The difference, ' ' he writes, "between
stooped so low as to employ an instru-
geopolitics and political geography liesof vengeance which has only suc-
ment
in the fact that while political geogra-
ceeded in mobilizing the major part of
phy is only the investigation of condi-
humanity against Germany in a con-
tions, geopolitics asks an outspoken, flict which will set civilization back a
dynamic question." hundred years and must terminate in
182

This content downloaded from 207.71.53.62 on Thu, 04 Jan 2018 21:57:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 GEOPOLITICS AND PEACE 183

the annihilation of those who in

The best prophylaxis organ-
the field of
ized the tragedy. external strategy will be an American
The rise of Nazism as one of the geopolitics based on international jus-
tice, international honor, and mutu-
greatest political and military forces
ality
in history is unintelligible without a of international respect. Since
full knowledge of the preparation,
such motives have failed to influence
propaganda, and indoctrination which
the Axis mentality, America must con-
preceded the fateful inceptiontinue
of to mobilize her tremendous strik-
World War II on September 1, 1939.
ing power and falter not in using it
No man possessed of the historic sense fearlessly and without scruple in the
or conscious of the meaning of values service of freedom, social justice, and
can fail to recognize in Nazism a the syn-inalienable rights of human per-
thesis of dynamic elements capable, sonality.
if The objective is not a new im-
successful, of profoundly changingperialism
the but fulfillment of the heavy
course of western civilization and obligations attaching to great political
power and economic affluence. Our
ushering in a conflict with Christianity
comparable to the attempts of the allies
Cae-have consistently declared that
sars to drown the nascent faith in the if America fails in this supreme test,
blood of its adherents. That titantic the future will be black indeed for all
duel lasted for three centuries. It is not free peoples. There can be no turning
impossible that the world should again back. Resistance to evil should be pro-
be plunged into a series of exhausting longed and force applied with inflexi-
wars, local campaigns, sieges, block- bility of will and at any sacrifice until
ades, and temporary armistices - un- all governments understand that he
less the axé be laid resolutely to the who wantonly takes the sword shall
root of the evil. perish by it.

This content downloaded from 207.71.53.62 on Thu, 04 Jan 2018 21:57:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms